As the semiconductor industry scales up multi-chip architectures and larger packages, managing heat dissipation has become an urgent mechanical problem. Modern advanced packaging combines diverse dies and interconnects onto expansive substrates. However, when these materials experience fluctuating manufacturing temperatures, their differing rates of expansion cause microscopic bending, known as package warpage.
Even slight surface unevenness prevents a chip from making flush contact with cooling systems. The resulting microscopic air gaps introduce thermal bottlenecks, sparking hot spots that threaten silicon reliability and constrain processing throughput.
To overcome this structural challenge, advanced thermal solutions provider NovoLINC has announced a major demonstration of its MaxLINC™ thermal interface material (TIM). During an evaluation using a production-representative silicon test die exhibiting roughly 150 micrometers of warpage, MaxLINC achieved a uniform heat flux of 400 W/cm² and dissipated 3,300 W of total power.
Conducted in collaboration with liquid cooling provider CoolIT Systems, the demonstration coupled the material with a direct liquid cooling cold plate. Across the test cycle, the full thermal assembly maintained the silicon junction temperature below 90°C. This proved that MaxLINC can establish continuous contact over warped dies without demanding excessive mounting pressure that could otherwise crack fragile silicon.
In modern semiconductor assembly and OSAT workflows, warpage often forces engineers into difficult trade-offs between yield, flatness tolerances, and cooling efficiency. MaxLINC addresses this reality using a proprietary nanostructured composite architecture. The material combines ultra-low thermal resistance with high mechanical compliance, adapting to surface variations while channeling heat away from high-density hotspots.
NovoLINC CTO Dr. Sheng Shen stated that pairing advanced thermal interface technology with existing direct liquid cooling setups provides a viable roadmap to support rising device power densities. Ben Sutton, Product Marketing Manager at CoolIT, added that pairing the technologies shows single-phase direct liquid cooling can sustain high-heat-flux chips well into the next decade without overhauling existing data center cooling designs.
Dr. Ning Li, CEO of NovoLINC, emphasized that the company aims to eliminate the thermal interface as a limiting factor in chip engineering. This gives foundries, packaging houses, and system architects greater freedom to build multi-kilowatt processors. Beyond modern AI accelerators, NovoLINC designed MaxLINC for broad packaging integration, ranging from die-level heat spreaders to cold-plate attachments. Samples are now available for customer evaluation.
